Fall TV 2012

It's time once again to decide what to care about this coming fall TV season. There are a few shows I'm excited about this year but everything is going to have to try hard to get my mind off of some of the outstanding shows this summer offered. 

Here's how my fall schedule will look. 

Monday

Partners (CBS)
With a cast this charming, I have to give it a try. It hasn't gotten great reviews but I don't have a lot going on on Mondays so it pretty much only has to be mediocre and it's in. 

Switched At Birth (ABC Family)
I know people think that because this show is on ABC Family it's slight or fluffy or a guilty pleasure but it isn't. It is a genuinely good show with a talented cast and great writing that deals with deafness in the most beautiful, natural, respectful way. The silent fights are some of my favorite scenes on TV. And with the terrible breakup of the Bay/Emmett relationship, the second season promises to be another amazing emotional journey.

Hawaii Five-0 (CBS) 
Why do I watch this show? A police procedural in a pretty setting with one of the top five bromances on TV. And sometimes the good looking dudes take their shirts off. 

Tuesday

Hart of Dixie (The CW)
As charming and fun as this show was in its first season, I didn't really expect it to get a second. Now that it has, I hope they do something more interesting with George than making him the awkward third side in two different love triangles. More importantly, I hope they don't spend another season pretending Zoe wants him like she wants Wade when it is clear to everyone in the world that she really doesn't. 

Emily Owens, M.D. (The CW)
Mamie Gummer deserves to be a big star but I don't think this is the show that's going to do that for her but I'll watch it just in case her considerable talent makes an otherwise mediocre show somehow great. But when it's cancelled, I can't wait to have her back on The Good Wife. 

Don't Trust The Bitch in Apt. 23 (ABC)
Despite the incredibly stupid name, it's a sort of decent show. James van der Beek is pretty funny and likable as a douchey James van der Beek, Krysten Ritter is fun when she's being terrible and Dreama Walker is much funny enough that I'm going to give the second season a few episodes to see if the show will really start to click for me. 

New Girl (Fox)
If you didn't watch this show last season, go to Hulu right now and watch the episode entitled "Fancyman Part I" right now. Seriously. I'll wait. Ok, now that you've watched that episode you should be as in love with the show as I am and setting your DVR for season 2. 

The Mindy Project (Fox)
I want to like this show but after the pilot I'm only luke-warm on it. There's potential so I'm hopeful that it will find its footing and become the perfect, charming lead out for New Girl. 

Parenthood (NBC)
Having just watched the first three seasons of Parenthood I am deeply in love with the Bravermans, the show and the cast. The greatest compliment I can give this show is that it gets the feeling of being part of a family right. It is effecting in all of the small ways that become huge when they're brought together. 

Wednesday

Arrow (The CW) 
I don't think I'm interested in this show but it has received such good notice from enough of the critics I trust that I'm going to watch it because I'd rather discover that I really like a show I didn't want to watch, that to be disappointed by a show I did want to watch. And if I do like it that means Katie Cassidy in my life every week. What could be better than that? 

Suburgatory (ABC)
Suburgatory might be funnier than Modern Family. No, scratch that. Suburgatory is funnier than Modern Family. Cheryl Hines and Alan Tudyk are the best things about this show and just in general.

Nashville (ABC)
Connie Britton playing a country music singer who's star is being eclipsed by a Taylor Swift-esque ingenue played by Hayden Panettiere. Why wouldn't I want to watch this show? Why wouldn't everyone in the world want to watch this show? 

Chicago Fire (NBC)
I want this show to be the E.R. of fire fighting but we all know that's not what this show will be. It will be terrible and generic and I will watch all of the episodes because Taylor Kinney and Jesse Spencer are in it and I'm incredibly shallow. 

Thursday

The Big Bang Theory (CBS)
It's a funny sitcom. It just is. 

The Vampire Diaries (The CW)
I wasn't in love with the 3rd season but I am in love with how it ended. Vampire Elena opens a world of amazing possibilities and I can't wait to see where they take it from here. But once again I start the season with this important message for the writers, do not kill Caroline or Matt or we're through. 

Last Resort (ABC)
Scott Speedman is back on TV every week. It's like a decade of wishing finally made it so. Added incentive: Autumn Reeser, Dichen Lachman, Jessy Schram and Andre Braugher. The fact that it's a Shawn Ryan show means there's slim chance of longevity but one of his shows is bound to catch on with a wide enough audience some day, right? That's just the law of averages. Maybe this will be the one. 

Up All Night (NBC)
With a funny, likable cast it seems like this show should be a no-brainer but it's actually kind of forgettable. I'll keep watching though because of the funny and likable cast. 

Parks and Recreation (NBC) 
Yes! You can't not Knope.

Scandal (ABC)
Like a perfect blend of The West Wing and early Grey's Anatomy which are two shows that you wouldn't think could be blended into something awesome but then you watch Scandal and you realize that the blend is exactly what your Thursday night has always needed. Seriously you guys, WHO IS QUINN?!

Friday

Nikita (The CW)
This show. I can't explain it. It shouldn't even be good because we already had an Alias and...I don't know. It's good. There's a central couple that's just, together. Like, for a season and a half they're a couple and they stay a couple and it's no big deal. There's a computer nerd who is bad ass when the shit goes down. Last season the will-they-or-won't-they of the Alex/Sean relationship had me screaming "ohmygod MAKE OUT" so often I got strange looks from my neighbors. And this season, Devon Sawa is a series regular. OWEN! God, I'm excited for this damn show!

Sunday

Once Upon a Time (ABC)
I marathoned this one over the summer and it turns out that it's surprisingly engrossing. The casting is amazing and will include Teen Wolf's Sinqua Walls and Michael Raymond-James in the second season. If Sebastian Stan returns as Jefferson/The Mad Hatter, I will have no complaints. 

Revenge (ABC)
I'm not going to insult you by pretending I have to explain why I like this show. We all know why this show is great. What I will do is point out that JR Bourne has been cast in the second season. Casting hot dudes from Teen Wolf? That's the kind of show-running that deserves my adoration.

The Good Wife (CBS)
I have two words for you: Kalinda's. Husband. BOOM! 

666 Park Avenue (ABC)
Terry O'Quinn and Venessa Williams as a married couple who may or may not be Mr. and Mrs. Satan? Yeah, like I'm not gonna watch THAT. 


What will you be watching? 

I would silent fight over Emmett in a hot second.

Last night's summer finale of Switched At Birth was so good that I no longer even remember what it was I kind of didn't like about this show when it began 10 short weeks ago.  The show managed to become the very best thing about the summer and it did so on the back of the most riveting fights on television.  Fights that were fought in utter silence. 

Angelo Sorrento finally made an appearance and he looks like Gilles Marini which makes it really hard to be mad at him for being the kind of dude who'd run out on his wife and deaf kid.  Well, I mean, there are also those extenuating circumstances where he know the kid wasn't his but his wife kept insisting she hadn't had an affair and no one immediately thinks "baby swap" under those circumstances.  Bay doesn't know what to think of his arrival and briefly hides it from everyone before introducing him to her parents.  She remains worried about Daphne's reaction.

John Kennish is roughly as welcoming of Angelo as you expect him to be until Angelo is like "I want in on the lawsuit and also I brought along an affidavit from the nurse who mixed up our babies saying she'd been working for 48 hours straight so you totally need me if you want to win."  The Kennish's attorneys are all "SHADY" but John is blinded by his need to be righter than the hospital so he doesn't want to listen. 

Meanwhile Kathryn and Regina are totally BFFs again and Regina is going to open a salon of her own and Kathryn wants to find something to do besides stay home and make elaborate meals that no one eats so the whole episode I was like "Kathryn is going to be Regina's partner!" and then Angelo goes all squirrely and tells Regina he's not leaving and will instead stay around, be hot, get back together with Regina and then give her his 1/2 of the hospital settlement to open a salon and support him in the lifestyle to which he'd like to be accustomed until he gets bored and leaves again.  I'm paraphrasing. 

Daphne is capital-P Pissed when she runs into Angelo and no one blames her.  She quickly brushes by that trauma to focus all of her energy on her blinding rage over Bay dating Emmett. She silent fights with Emmett about how he swore he would never date a hearing girl and he tells her it's none of her damn business and then finally he demands that Daphne tell him what the hell she's so upset about.  She tells him that she likes him and he blows a silent gasket saying that he waited for years for her to see that he liked her and to feel the same way and the very second he moves on to liking someone else she decides to have fuzzy feelings for him.  They have the best silent fight ever, all signing over one another and finger shouting, and then he kisses her.  He pulls away and her face is totally dreamy while his is just angry.  He tells her that he is with Bay and that's that. 

But then Daphne's in his head and he's all weirded out by how he can't understand what Toby and Wilke (Jones) are saying when they try to convince him to be their drummer at some show in St. Louis and then Bay laughs and doesn't know how to sign "bet" so she finger spells it and Emmett kind of dumps her.  Toby remembers how to be awesome and goes to see Emmett and lays some signs down on him.  He basically tells Emmett to stop making his sister sad which is a very sweet brotherly gesture that isn't entirely his business but whatevs. 

Emmett thinks some stuff over and then goes to see Bay to tell her that he doesn't like being around hearing people because he's never really been around hearing people but from the very beginning she was different.  It wasn't like she was either hearing or deaf, she was just her and it was easy to be around her.  He says he doesn't want to be with Daphne, no matter what feelings she suddenly realized she had, he just wants to be with Bay.  Oh, and that last part?  HE SPEAKS.  My mind was blown!

Then he joins Wilke and Toby and they go to St. Louis and Wilke tells Toby that he likes Daphne and Bay asks how Daphne's doing and she's like "I hate that Angelo is here and I don't want you to talk to him and also, I will not rest until Emmett is hers.  Again, paraphrasing. 

So, I am going to come out firmly in favor of one Emmett 'ship over another here, ready?  I want Emmett and Bay to be together.  Bay is just so much more tolerable and interesting as a character when she's with Emmett.  And I like Daphne a lot but I think it's a better story for her to have a struggle with her friendship with Emmett as well as her strange relationship with Bay while also dating Wilke who is the cutest thing that isn't Emmett in the whole world.  I feel like everyone wins in that scenario. 

The Dance Of Joy

Don't let my two week silence on the subject of Switched At Birth fool you, I have grown to adore this show.  I even found Bay marginally likable last night and in the previous episode.  Considering I was lukewarm at best on this one at the outset, you may be wondering what changed my mind.  In a word: Emmett. 

The show has started to find it's footing and refine the personalities of the characters, mostly dialing down the ways in which they were complete assholes.  They'd done that with nearly everyone already but then last week, they even let up on Bay's awfulness and let her just act like a normal person.  The main difference? She was now interacting almost exclusively with Emmett.  Emmett has magic powers.

This week the snooping that Bay and Emmett did last week led to the discovery of what Bay believed to be her biological dad.  The two then make a plan to go confront him at the club where he DJs and then they dance with each other in what may be the cutest bit of cuteness I've ever witnessed.  Once we've all recovered from Emmett's dancing, he and Bay invite Daphne to come along.  Daphne is not having it because once a person abandons you, you're often less than anxious to meet up for a chat.  But after her weekly (and AWESOME) silent fight with Emmett, she thought it over and changed her mind. 

The three of them headed off to confront Bio-Dad.  Emmett talked them into his place of employment (yeah, you heard me) and then Daphne laid into him and then he was like "um, I'm gay. But you seem really nice."  So, scratch private detective off of the list of possible careers Bay should look into.  The girls and Emmett stopped for food and a talk and Bay requested that Daphne find the guitar case that Regina flipped when she and Emmett snooped around years earlier.  Daphne bristled. 

The next day at school, Daphne confronts Emmett (silent fight number two!) and asks him what's going on with him and Bay.  He's all "why, whatever do you mean?" and she rightly calls him on how he was crazy adamant that she shouldn't date Liam because deaf people can't date hearing people and now he's getting super flirty with Bay.  He promises that there is nothing going on between him and Bay...and then he tracks Bay down at school, tells her he likes her and kisses her pretty awesomely.  Bay does not protest because while she is super annoying, she clearly isn't stupid. 

Meanwhile, Daphne waits until Regina is out of the house and then she snoops into the guitar case again.  It's locked so she goes through a zillion or so combinations before she finds one that works (229 - which happens to spell out "Bay").  When she opens the case, it's full of pictures of Bay growing up and information on her grades over the years.  It's clear that the thing the hospital knows about Regina that's going to make a lawsuit troublesome for the Kennishes is that she's known about the switch for many, many years.  Daphne is devastated, I'm shocked and the rest of the peeps on the show are going to split wide open with various emotions next week.  I am really excited. 

Also last night, the Kennish 'rents found out that Toby stole and then participated in the sale of test answers as a means of paying of his astronomical gambling debt.  Then Jones, who remains incredibly cute even this far away from Life Unexpected, took the fall alone and let Toby off the hook because even though he's kind of a shit, he's not a total shit.  That's why I'm supportive of his road to redemption including a relationship with Daphne.  Oh, right, Toby. 

Once Toby is off the hook, he completely fails to take any responsibility for how his serious gambling habit paired with how really, really bad he is at it are fucking shit up so Bay does the sisterly thing and sticks her nose in.  She goes to Regina (with Daphne) and then Regina lays some hard truths on him about how he needs to deal with his addiction and he kind of acts like a dick about it for a while and then finally hears her.  So he confesses to his dad and admits he has a problem and blah blah first step.  Please don't take my "blah blah" as an indication that I don't take addiction seriously because nothing could be further from the truth.  I'm just trying to speed this up.  I actually think this resolution is the very best thing about the Toby Gambling storyline. 

And finally, Kathryn remained in a snit about Regina dating the ex-husband of her bitchy friend and Regina remained in a snit about Kathryn being up in her business and then Katheryn found out that the ex-husband in question was sleeping with both Regina and the bitchy friend and she told Regina - but not in a "told you so" kind of way so much as a "seriously, he's kind of a pig" kind of way and Regina was like "bitch, butt OUT!"  Then Regina asked Ex-Husband and he's all "yeah, I'm bangin' half the ladies in town, what of it?"  So Regina dumped him and then she and Kathryn decided they're friends.  At least until next week when Guitar Case Gate unleashes hell on the show. 

I. Can't. WAIT!

She Doesn't Know What She's Not Missing

Remember when I said that most of the characters on Switched At Birth were assholes but then they started to behave a little bit better, like maybe they weren't TOTAL assholes?  I was wrong.  Total assholes. 

The Kennishes continue to think that they should get to be the primary parents to all kids everywhere this week, with Red Kennish flipping right the fuck out about Regina letting her kid ride on the back of a motor cycle driven by a deaf guy.  Because deaf people can't hear honking so they shouldn't be allowed to drive anything at all. 

Papa Kennish, meanwhile, is taking charge of who they should sue over the baby switching and when Regina says she doesn't want to sue anyone he's pissed because of how much she needs the gobs and gobs of money they'll get.  And he agrees with his wife that she knows better than Regina how to parent Daphne but then he catches Bay sneaking in the window in the middle of the night when she's grounded and decides to keep that from the Mrs. because her punishment is so irrational. 

Bay whines and feels sorry for herself and does not try to be friends with Daphne but she does make eyes at Emmett's sexiness (as well she should) and then make out with Ty after he helps her with some of her graffiti art. 

Because the show didn't think they had enough assholes, they also introduced us to the two rudest teenage boys on earth when Daphne went on a date with Liam and they ran into his friends who talked shit about Daphne and made fun of deaf people right in front of her.  Liam asked them nicely to stop.  They didn't.  He let it go.  Daphne bailed and called the dreamy Emmett to rescue her. 

In other news of people who have apparently never interacted with deaf people before in their lives, the Kennishes continue to talk to Daphne a mile a minute while flitting to and fro and moving their heads all around.  It seems the concept of lip reading is completely lost on these selfish idiots.  But the Kennishes are the only people who are selfish and assy - Regina could not give less of a shit Daphne wanting to get to know her bio-fam. She also doesn't quite grasp the concept of "guest house" because she starts ripping down wallpaper and starting a junk pile of the items that Mama Kennish probably paid through the nose for with which the guest house had been decorated prior to Regina's arrival. 

Once again the only people that didn't act like assholes this week?  Daphne, Emmett, and Toby.  This show is on thin ice.

The Old Switcheroo

I did not want to be interested in Switched At Birth.  Summers are supposed to be my down time, to read more books and get caught up on the backlog of TV that piles up during the "regular" season.  I have enough already on my schedule in the summer without various networks adding new shows that spark my interest.  Switched At Birth stars Vanessa Marano who played the supremely irritating April Nardini, who ruined everything, on Gilmore Girls and I hold TV grudges.  DW Moffett is playing Marano's dad.  He played Joe McCoy, who ruined Coach's Dillon Panthers career on Friday Night Lights.  Grudge!  There were so many reasons to be disinterested in this show but against the odds, ABCFamily's campaign made me want to watch. 

Once I decided I wanted to see it, I really, really wanted to like it.  I was excited for it.  I should have known that my raised expectations were only setting it up to let me down. 

We begin by meeting Bay Kennish (Marano) who is telling her parents (Moffett and Lea Thompson) that what they learned in science class today is that she has a blood type that proves she's not biologically related to her parents at all.  Bay insists they get genetic testing which her parents go along with and 6 weeks later they're all told that Bay was given the wrong ID bracelet as an infant and mistakenly went home with the wrong family.  Shortly after that the Kennish family meets Daphne Vasquez (Katie Leclerc) and her mother Regina (Constance Marie).  Daphne looks exactly like Lea Thompson and is deaf.  Regina is of Puerto Rican decent and somehow believed for 16 years that the pale ginger was her biological daughter. 

When the two families meet, Bay is a total bitch.  She mostly ignores Daphne except when she's being snotty to her and she barely even bothers to say anything to Regina.  Regina is openly hostile toward the wealthy Kennish's because they have the nerve to have money.  After the initial meeting, Kristen and John Vasquez set about acting like entitled assholes and trying to find a way to work it out so they can have both of the girls all to themselves.  Kristen even does a background check on Regina and discovers two DUIs on her record a dozen years ago and then accuses her of making Daphne deaf by being too drunk to take her to the hospital when she caught meningitis.  See? Assholes. 

John Kennish goes behind Regina's back and tries to get Daphne to enroll in the fancy private school that his other kids attend.  Bay gets a fake nose piercing and spray paints some art on a wall in Daphne's 'hood then tries to buy beer with a fake ID and gets arrested.  After a fight with both of her mothers at the police station, she runs away.  She calls her brother who is one of only 3 people on the show who isn't an asshole (Daphne and her friend Emmett are the other two) and while she's busy feeling sorry for herself he reminds her that maybe she could talk to Daphne about the situation since that's one person who could understand what it's like to find out you were switched at birth. 

With scant few minutes left in the show, Bay goes to talk to Daphne where they sort of bond in a semi-sisterly fashion and then Bay has a not-terribly-assy encounter with Regina and her new bio-grandma during which she finds out they are broke and might move to Toledo so she convinces her parents to let the Vasquez family move into their guest house. 

If not for the nice moments at the end between Bay and Toby; Bay and Daphne; Bay, Daphne, Regina and Grandma; and the existence of Emmett and Toby, I would have shit-canned this show completely.  But somehow those final minutes salvaged the show for me and almost entirely on the likability of Leclerc, I find myself liking the show. 

So I didn't want to watch; then I wanted to watch and I wanted to love it; then I watched and I hated everyone on it; then I everyone stopped being assholes for 5 minutes and I sort of liked it.  This show is one episode old and it's already given me whiplash.  If it's going to keep its season pass I'm going to need to see a lot less of Bay and the adults acting like assholes and a lot more of Toby and Emmett.  Stay tuned to this space next week to see what happens.